For Those Worth Saving
by staringatstars07
Summary: Jesse McCree's had a good run. He's fought alongside criminals and heroes and fired a bullet into death itself, but now it's time for that run to end, in fire or in blood, because something inside of him is changing, and he never signed up to be a monster.


Thinking back, McCree decided he'd had a good run.

Sure, it'd started out a little rocky, but it wasn't the beginning that'd made him into the man he was today, but the people he'd met along the way. He'd walk around the moon ten times and back if it meant keeping them safe.

Calloused fingers came up to touch the puncture wounds located beside his carotid artery, a parting present from a crazed Talon soldier that'd jumped him on what should have been a simple retrieval mission. They were old now, rimmed with pink scarring, yet they ached, throbbing in time with his pulse.

A few weeks ago, Winston had called to ask for a favor. And since McCree was the only former Overwatch member in New Mexico who might be willing to risk hide and limb for an off-the-books mission, he'd filled the cowboy in on a warehouse in the middle of the desert, where a piece of Talon's stolen tech was reportedly being held, and requested that he take it back, right out from under their noses.

Naturally, the gunslinger had agreed - a little too readily. The days were long and sweltering in the New Mexican summer, and he was sure that if something didn't distract him soon, his brains would cook in his skull like an omelet.

It was a week of record-breaking temperature highs, the kind of weather that made Hell look like a choice vacation spot, so he'd ditched the serape and poncho, dressing in a loose white shirt with sleeves that cut off at the elbow and an old pair of jeans instead. He looked so good he was almost envious of the lucky fella that tried to get in his way.

Guns drawn and alert, he'd crept into the warehouse through the front entrance, expecting a fight. The sharp tang of copper saturated the air, filling his mouth and nostrils with something sweet and putrid. He stepped forward onto dark soil that caked around his boots, sight adjusting to the dim lighting to find the ground and walls decorated with the corpses of fallen Talon soldiers. One was draped over the crate towards the back, his arms swinging limply, helmet knocked askew.

He peeked under the sole of his shoe, grimacing at the tendrils of congealed blood that stretched from heel to toe.

More soldiers dangled from the rafters, suspended by the chains looped beneath their shoulders, like the empty husks of insects left to rot after a spider's meal.

Before McCree could get in contact with Winston, a weight dropped on his back from the ceiling, snarling and spitting, squeezing its arms around the cowboy's chest and wrapping its legs around his waist with the unshakeable strength of a python. It compressed his lungs, forcing the air out, then chomped down on his neck, and immediately McCree began to feel dizzy, blinking black spots out of his vision as he stumbled backwards, purposely continuing the momentum until he collided with the aluminum walls, stunning the creature. Reaching over his shoulder, he shoved the barrel of Peacekeeper beneath its chin and pumped three rounds of lead into it.

Gunpowder and burning flesh overlapped with the stench of blood and rot. The creature went limp, sliding off his back, and McCree gawked at it, having half-expected to find the still form of a puma lying in the dirt. Even if the overgrown cat wasn't capable of tossing and ripping apart soldiers with the ease of breaking a toy, it'd seemed more likely, more stomachable, that the carnage had been the work of an animal instead of a man, but now that McCree was thinking straight, he could see the distended jaw peeking out from under the tinted black visor of the helmet customary to the standard issued Talon uniform, as well as the cargo pants and gloves that had wrapped around his torso.

After taking a moment to exhale through his teeth, focusing on calming the frantic thudding in his chest, McCree kicked open the door, hefted the soldier's body off the ground, then tossed it into the sunlight, intent on getting the remains as far away from him as he could manage.

Imagine his surprise when it promptly burst into flames.

He'd thought that would be the end of it, just him and a warehouse full of corpses, until a few weeks later, when the sun began to raise ugly blisters on his skin, food lost its taste, and the people in his neighborhood started looking mighty appetizing.

At first, he chalked it up to the heat. Nothing lunch with an old friend wouldn't cure.

Lena had come to pay him a visit, which made sense when she literally had the most time to kill out of all of them, so he covered up – serape, poncho, wide-brimmed hat – and took her to a little hole-in-the-wall place he'd chanced upon while out on patrol one night. It served delicious tacos, and even a few salads for those with a taste for rabbit food.

He watched her laugh and smile as she caught him up on her life, rubbing his jaw every so often to ease a dull ache running through his gums, centered at the base of his teeth. Then the server passed them their menus and Lena bent over the Spanish written in small print beneath each of the items, her brow furrowed in deep concentration.

With a low, rumbling chuckle, McCree bent forward to help her translate. She tipped her head slightly, abashed, a hint of pink darkening her cheeks, and suddenly, the exposed slope of her neck was all McCree could think about. He heard her blood rushing through his ears, her heartbeat pounding away, drumming on the inside of his skull, and he didn't know what expression must've been on his face in that moment but he saw her shrink away, remembered the frustrated anger burning in his gut before remembering who he was, who _she_ was, and he backed up, so violently he nearly knocked over his chair, narrowly missing the table behind them.

Offering some excuse about needing to use the men's room – He shouldn't have bothered. Lena didn't buy it for a second – he shoved his way into the restroom, locked the door behind him, then yanked his lips away from his teeth. He gawked at the elongated canines, the beads of blood welling up from where their points had broken through skin.

The soldier that had done this to him had ripped apart a warehouse full of his own allies with nothing but his bare hands. Was that what he had to look forward to?

Yeah. Not happening.

He snuck out the back, leaving Lena to wait for him for an indefinite amount of time, though they hadn't ordered anything yet and he was sure it wouldn't be long before she cottoned onto the ruse, so he didn't feel too bad. Well, not about that, at least.

He'd always hated the _it's for your own good_ rationalization. A man ought to fight until his dying breath to be with his loved ones, not go out of his way to die for them. What use were you to your kids when you were dead? But if this was it, and he's at the end of his rope, then he might as well spend his final moments with an old friend, engaged in one final duel, putting their skills to the test for the last time.

Maybe it wouldn't do much for the former Blackwatch commander, besides strike another name off his list, but McCree couldn't think of a better way to go than at the hands of the man who'd plucked him from the gutter and shaped him into a hero.

He'd taken a chance on him when no one else had. Might as well take responsibility for it.

It didn't take long to find the last reported location of Reaper's unit. Reyes always did like to stay close to home, but McCree figured that, instead of going to him, it'd be easier, much less of a hassle for the both of them, what with Reyes playing at being a wraith and all, if he started walking alone, away from civilization, with nothing but Peacekeeper and the clothes on his back.

It's an opportunity no man bearing a grudge could resist, and sure enough, the looming, shifting silhouette of his old mentor appeared, standing stark against the subtle glow of the horizon. It moved like it had a will of its own, stretching and shifting and swirling, a living void swallowing the stars.

In the end, though, it didn't make much of a difference. The stars were fading into the inky black canvas behind them before his arrival, as tended to happen when the dawn of a new day drew near.

McCree shed his poncho and his scarlet serape (it's the last thing his _abuela_ ever gave him and he'll be damned if it winds up tattered and full of holes when nobody's not around to fix it), but not his hat. The hat remained, sitting pretty on his head because he'd lived a cowboy his entire life, and he was taking that to the grave.

In an artificially deepened voice, Reaper growled, "What are you doing out here, mongrel?"

A grin splitting his face, McCree tipped his hat. "Aw, Gabe, you came all the way out here for little ol' me? That was mighty thoughtful of you."

Reaper raised his rifles with a wordless snarl, cocked them, and McCree started running in a serpentine pattern, turning sharply and skidding to avoid the semi-automatic fire while he closed the distance between them.

He remembered when he was a kid, a punk fresh out of the deadliest gang in Texas, and Reyes used to spar with him, improved his aim to the point where he could keep up with speedsters, ninjas, and explosions experts with a penchant for mayhem. Back then, they hadn't been out for blood, and Reyes had won their little skirmishes more often than not. In the face of hard won battle instincts and experience, it didn't matter that he'd had the best aim in Blackwatch. But he wasn't that uppity little kid, anymore.

And he knew that it wasn't how many bullets you fired that determined who came out standing at the end, but whether or not you made every last one count.

Without any shelter to duck behind, McCree waited patiently for the perfect opportunity to counter attack, which finally came when Reaper's cartridge ran out of bullets.

In that moment, he stood tall, his dark brown eyes narrowed in concentration that made the world fall away, until the gun became a part of him, an extension of his will, and hitting Reaper in the center of his forehead wasn't a possibility, it wasn't up to odds or chance. It was the future. " _It's High Noon_."

Pull the trigger. Fire. Cock the gun. Pull the trigger. Fire. Cock the gun.

Repeat.

It was easy as existing. When it was done, the chamber empty, there were hairline fractures in the porcelain owl mask, and a pretty hole the size of a penny located right over his brow. At first glance, it looked like he'd only shot the wraith once, but actually he'd hit him six times in the same exact place. Perfect.

Anyone else would have dropped to the ground, dead in an instant.

But not Reyes.

Watching the hole begin to heal as fragments of the owl mask flaked off, revealing the exposed teeth, sinew, and bone of the man underneath, McCree let out a low whistle, impressed.

Well, he'd already used up all of Peacekeeper's rounds. Guess there wasn't much left for him to do now but to look death in the face and wait. Reyes stepped closer, his mouth parted in a permanent sneer, black miasma slipping out from between his ruined lips, then raised his rifles, keeping each of them aimed at the center of McCree's chest.

Seeing him standing still, weapon useless at this side, McCree said."I ain't gonna run, Reyes. Go ahead."

Reaper pumped the guns, took aim, and McCree closed his eyes, letting the sounds and smells fade away like the remnants of a half-forgotten dream.

It started as an itch, then the itch grew into a burning at the base of his organic arm. His focus and senses came roaring back, though he'd rather they hadn't, because the sensation of being consumed by a chemical fire was so intense he wished he'd been shot.

His flesh was smoking like he'd dipped it in a vat of acid, exposed limb darkening to a charcoal black in the sunlight. Pain exploded in his brain, wiping out his thoughts in a nuclear blast of agony. He couldn't speak, couldn't move.

Until a pair of gloved hands shoved against his chest, pushing him down into the meager shadow cast on the sand by a nearby boulder. The pain dulled almost immediately, and he blinked at at the cloaked figure blocking out the sunlight. Reaper stared down at him. "What happened to you, _mijo?_ "

Stunned, the cowboy recoiled from the familiar words, clutching an arm that looked like it'd lost a fight with a cheese-grater and a microwave to his chest. "Don't fucking call me that," he snarled.

From what little he could discern of the wraith's face through the fractured owl mask, McCree could've sworn he'd caught the slightest hint of a flinch. Reyes had always been adept at burying his emotions, suppressing them until those under him sometimes had to wonder if he hadn't erased them entirely, but they were there for those who knew where to look. That's what McCree had always thought, anyway. It's how he'd consistently trumped the Commander at Poker and Go-Fish before Blackwatch disbanded. But he couldn't believe the guilt he saw now in the crinkled corners of eyes with black sclera and scarlet pupils, not while knowing that those same eyes had watched their former comrades die. "Jesse, how –" Reyes stopped, staring into the distance with his fingers drumming agitatedly against his thigh. Eventually, he tried again, starting from the beginning, "McCree. How did this happen?"

Dry, cracked lips curling back to reveal fangs, McCree yelled, "One of your freak soldiers took a chomp out of my neck, that's how!"

Glancing towards the side, Reyes breathed out a curse. "What were you thinking, _cabron?_ Coming out here like you've got a death wish." His fingers curled around the triggers of his duel rifles. "I ought to kill you myself."

With an audacious grin cutting through his cheeks, McCree dipped his head, tucking his chin close to his chest, though his gaze never shifted from his former mentor. It burned bright, illuminated by the strength of his defiance, daring Reyes to do his worst.

"Try it, old man." And McCree might've exaggerated the ol' drawl a tad there, but it got the job done.

The dawn was a beautiful molten gold rising above the horizon, staining the sky with the morning's blush, but Reyes had his back to the light. His hood cast a shadow that sunk in into the contours of his mask, raising it from merely an intimidating likeness of a predatory bird that the stories McCree had been raised with claimed brought sickness and death, to the personification of that fear. Standing there with the barrel of his guns aimed at the cowboy's forehead, he was the sickness that ripped McCree's mother from him when he was still a boy, and the temptation that had taken his father, too. He was there when his _abuela_ died, there when he'd taken to aiming that helpless rage at folks that didn't deserve it, or maybe they did, but not from him. Not from a kid with too much hate in his heart and a lethal quick draw.

He'd walked with death since the day he was born, grown-up with it. Heck, he'd always thought that when the day arrived that it finally came for him, he'd greet it like an old friend. Of course, back then, he hadn't expected it to actually _be_ one.

Reyes stared him down, silent, giving away nothing. Finally, when McCree was about ready to lose his temper and shout for him to get it over with, he lowered the guns down to his sides, letting them fall like they suddenly weighed too much to carry. "No. An ingrate like you isn't worth the bullets."

McCree couldn't believe what he was hearing. For a while he was too stunned to form a coherent response, then Reyes pulled a burner phone out from under his vest, started punching in a disturbingly familiar series of numbers like he'd done it a thousand times before, and the words came pouring out, baffled and more than a little irked, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Calling your commander," Reyes growled without missing a beat. "He'll come pick you up. Maybe even shove some brain cells through your thick skull when he finds out you came out here to burn."

He strode past the cowboy, heading in the direction of the town McCree had stayed in, which set off a string of furious curses from the man whose movements were restricted to the circle of shadow gradually shrinking around him as the sun rose above the horizon.

By the time Reyes came back, something McCree didn't even consider because people who left didn't come back, theynevercameback, he was too far gone to even recognize him. He could't move his fingers without setting their tips alight like candle wicks, couldn't breathe fully without risking the worst sunburn he'd ever experienced, and it had his new, vampiric instincts working in overdrive to consume every rational thought in his head, replacing it with neverending fear and a hunger that darkened his eyes to cold, unfeeling pits.

Something rough was thrown over him. It blocked out the heat, the light, and for a moment he sagged in relief. Then his stomach revolted, hunger driving him to lunge blindly at the – not warmth or blood – but living, moving being that could satiate or dull his hunger.

Had he been lucid, he would have expected the right hook to the jaw that knocked him flat on his rear, followed by the butt of a rifle that knocked him out cold.

"I can still kick your ass, _mijo_ ," Reyes sneered over the gunslinger's unconscious form. "Don't you forget it."

He stood watching McCree, or at least the rough outline of him that could be traced through the canvas, for a long time. Then stooped to gather up his poncho, and the serape he remembered McCree telling him the significance of once during their Blackwatch days. Once that was done, he looped the cowboy's flesh and blood arm around his neck, adjusted his grip around McCree's waist until he was sure the canvas covering him was secure and his gloved hand wouldn't slip or get caught in the coarse fabric, then took a long, powerful stride in the direction of town, the first of many.

Still, even with the enhancements afforded to him by his own curse, moving towards civilization with the gunslinger's dead weight in tow was slow going in combat boots and a heavy black cloak. For every labored step forward he tool, the internal debate within his mind raged on. Part of him believed that there was a better way for him to spend his briefly awakened humanity than by hauling a grown man to the nearest gas station so his friends could find and pick him up - maybe even heal him. As long as he hadn't consumed any blood yet, there was still a chance, and Reyes knew a starving fledgling when he saw one – but another, stronger part, knew that, given the choice to spend it differently, he wouldn't have changed a thing.


End file.
